


I Know I Could Have Loved You (But You Would Not Let Me)

by Dallas



Category: American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 19:33:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1163630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dallas/pseuds/Dallas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a fleeting moment between a daughter and her mother, lost within the bigger picture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Know I Could Have Loved You (But You Would Not Let Me)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Silver Springs' by Fleetwood Mac, written by Stevie Nicks.

She hadn’t meant to say it. Not really, anyway. But somehow all she could focus on was bitterness as she gingerly touched the scarred tissue around her eyes. The eyes themselves she wasn’t game to touch. She wasn’t entirely sure why but it just didn’t seem right. Regardless, she had answered when the question was asked, offering up some half-assed excuse for her explorations. Within an instant she had followed the response with a bitter comment, ‘At least I don’t have to put up with seeing how ugly it is’. It left tension in the room so thick Cordelia could feel it settling around her shoulders like a winter cloak. She wondered, briefly, if she would be able to feel it so distinctly if she hadn’t lost a sense to begin with.

“Do you recall when you first saw The Wizard of Oz?” Fiona asked after a long pause.

She cocked her head to the side, confused by the question. Countless questions. All she wanted to do was see her damn face again and her mother was bringing up old movies. “Of course,” she said, despite the urge to find anything within arms’ reach and launch it in the general direction of the woman’s voice. “You hated that movie. You blew up the TV one morning because I wouldn’t turn it off and you had a hangover.”

“I replaced it, didn’t I?”

She could almost smell the smoke in the air, her nose twitching the only sign of her disgust. In her mind she pictured her mother saying the words with a long stream of smoke falling from her lips. She could remember that from her childhood. The way Fiona would take a drag on a cigarette like she was sucking the very soul out of it, the let the smoke roll with her words as though it was the very air that she breathed. It seemed strange but something in her longed to see that again. “What’s your point?” she asked, sitting back against her pillows.

“The reason I didn’t like you watching it was because of the depiction of witches,” Fiona began to explain. Cordelia imagined her waving her hand as she spoke, cigarette hanging precariously between her fingers. “And I told you that. Green skinned, hooked nose, ugly woman that rides around on a broomstick. With all the children believing that trash it’s no wonder we’re dying out.”

The comment made her bite her tongue. She remembered the tirade from when she was a child but now, years later, she understood the real reason they were dying out. It had nothing to do with public perception and everything to do with their reigning Supreme.

“But you looked at me, so determined to prove me wrong, and you said...”

“Only bad witches are ugly,” she finished softly.

There was a heavy sigh from the corner of the room. “I’ve said and done a lot of shitty things, Delia. I know Myrtle Snow was probably a better mother than I ever could be,” the venom in her voice as she said the other Witch’s name almost stung Cordelia’s ears. “However... you’re not a bad witch.”

She inhaled sharply. Was that a compliment? Maybe she’d lost her hearing to a degree along with her sight. As she tried to find the right response, she heard movement. The chair shifted, or rather weight on the chair shifted, and there was a light thud against the wooden floor. Short sharp clips punctuated the silence as Fiona made her way to the door. Then, as words finally touched the tip of her tongue, she was gone.

To an empty room and an absent mother Cordelia whispered, “Thank you.”


End file.
